How Abstracta
closes skills gaps using TalentLMS

About Abstracta

Abstracta is a leading software testing company. With offices in Silicon Valley, Latin America, and the UK, Abstracta builds outsourced testing teams that deliver end-to-end testing and QA solutions.

We spoke with Kalei White, Chief Marketing Officer at Abstracta, about how the company uses TalentLMS to train employees, and why they decided to expand their training to external learners, as well.

The challenge Abstracta faced

Training is a major pillar in the IT field as employees need to be up-to-date with all the latest languages, tools, frameworks, and technologies. But sending software professionals to external training can be really expensive, so Abstracta decided to build something internally.

The cost of external training wasn’t the only issue, though. Soon after they created their first online course, they realized there was an even higher demand for software testing training within and outside the company. A lack of good software testers in the job market created skills gaps that only training could fill.

“It became painfully obvious that the key to our growth is training.”

Senior employees started building courses for junior team members. This way, knowledge was successfully shared throughout the entire organization.

But Abstracta isn’t the only company that struggled to hire great software testers.

Especially in North America, as Kalei noted, there’s a talent shortage when it comes to IT, leaving more space for people from South America to enter the world of technology.

“There’s much potential for people to join the knowledge economy. If we can help those people, we could make the world a bit of a better place.”

Turning the skills gap into an opportunity

This is how the idea of expanding their training program came up.

“We wanted to try to help as many people join this field because we can see the power of how working in software improves the quality of life.”

Abstracta opened up their courses to external audiences, including educational institutions, as well as to anyone who’s ever worked at the company and their families. The result is Abstracta Academy.

“Our mission is to provide people who tend to be underprivileged more opportunities to get these high-paying jobs and work with clients in the United States.”

One of the challenges of this project, though, was how they’d be able to provide quality courses accessible to everyone. They had the experts in place, those who’d generate excellent content, but they struggled with how they’d present and share it.

That’s when they came across TalentLMS.

Why Abstracta chose TalentLMS

Before sticking with TalentLMS, they tried about ten different tools. They rejected some of them because they were too pricey, while others were not as user-friendly as the team would like them to be.

“Through the eyes of software testers, we chose TalentLMS because we felt that it offered the best UX for the student and the teacher, within the price range that we could pay.”

Being an expert in the software testing field, Abstracta had high expectations that the LMS internal and external learners would be using.

“We’re in the business of creating quality software. So, for us, to choose TalentLMS really speaks to the quality of the platform and the product.”

And they were not disappointed, because, as Kalei shared, they’ve never had any type of access or performance problem for any of the courses. User management as well as course maintenance is also easy to do.

“The customer support is very responsive. They have helped very quickly in every issue or question we have had.”

What was the outcome of this partnership?

Today, Abstracta has 34 online courses and about 200 active users on the platform. Some courses are internal to Abstracta, and others are accessible to external students. The main benefit they’ve experienced so far, according to Kalei, is the ease of sharing knowledge.

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Kaila shares with us

“Instead of giving the same training in-person 50 times, it makes more sense to record it once and then send it to anyone around the world.”

With the software testing training they’re delivering through TalentLMS, they managed to fill the skills gaps from within. The team can now cast a wider net, hire for potential, and train for the skills they need as the industry evolves.

“Getting more and more people trained is vital to our growth as a company.”

Training is well-received by employees, as well. Once they complete a course, they share their custom certificates (made inside TalentLMS) on LinkedIn or on the company’s internal messaging app.

There, employees congratulate each other and get motivated to do the same. Those little virtual celebrations help with employee retention and satisfaction, as Kalei said.

“When you start to see more and more of your employees taking your training because they want to and because you can provide that for them, that is a really gratifying feeling.”

As these courses are available outside Abstracta, training is also beneficial for external learners, too. By building up their skill sets — and promoting their certificates — they can actively pursue better job opportunities. And companies can hire well-equipped employees, just like Abstracta did.